About 25 years ago I bought my first shares of Berkshire, back when stocks still traded in 1/16ths and such. As I retired recently (FIRE unlocked, woot), and was going through troves of papers in that "we might downsize and move to Hawaii" phase, I found the 2002 Annual Report that I had marked up. I've done that for over 20 years now, and every year I learn more. I've enjoyed learning on the Fool incarnation of this board, and glad I found this fork of the original appearance of that.

I remember well in the 2006 AR when he gave us six reasonably subtle but not deeply hidden indications that housing was not going in a great direction. Yeah, we learned didn't we?

I got to meet him at the Alfalfa Club Dinner in 2009, after seeing Becky Quick and saying hi and expressing my positive sentiments for her long-running coverage of him and Berkshire. She immediately tapped him on the shoulder and made introductions. I stammered a bit, said it was a tough year for my snowball as the sun had melted it a good bit, and he laughed and said keep going or such.

I watched his cash pile grow, wondering what was next, and now it is so big, it is vastly larger than Berkshire's market cap when I started this ride. What might he buy? My dark horse candidate is Disney.

The only bits I find puzzling are his personal life, which is full of choices I don't understand and several contradictions, but we're all human and I'm not looking to him for moral guidance.

Though I'm in the "distribution" phase now, I'll continue to read the ARs with interest so long as my eyes still allow it...